What I want to say,

A review of Jumper

Jumper stars Rachel Bilson as Millie, a normal girl from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who has always dreamed of travelling the world.  Her ordinary life changes one day when a friend of hers falls through the ice of a frozen river and is swept away.  However, that night she finds a trinket left by the boy on her swing.  Fast forward to a few years into adult life and Millie is working in the local bar when who should re-appear but the boy most of the town thinks drowned several years earlier.  He offers to take Millie to Rome, and having dreamed of travel for so long she agrees to go, but she's a believer in the thought that if something appears too good to be true it probably is.  Before long Millie is thrust into a world of danger, deception and lies that may be impossible to escape.

The action is good.  The effects are brilliant at times.  The most interesting character is once again not the lead however, and that's Jamie Bell who plays a character with a real attitude, a fiery spirit and a special power.  It's a wonderful performance and almost, but not quite, enough to make you want to check out that film he did that time about ballet.  Whereas with most action films you might remember a single image here and there from an enjoyable experience with this film you'll remember a lot of the shots and even some sequences long after the film is over.  Jumper is worth watching for the idea and the effects, and if you like it the ending seems set up for a sequel.  There are also special guest appearances by Darth Vader and Mace Windu.

About ten years ago I watched a little French film you may have heard of called "Taxi" which was written by Luc Besson. His name attached was a good reason to watch a film at that time since it was not long after "Leon" and right after the release of "The Fifth Element." So I watched Taxi and enjoyed it a lot. It was fast paced, thrilling, and had a ridiculous car... which was nice. But watching that film I saw the girl that played the girlfriend of the hero and she was simply effortless in her portrayal, even for such a small role in such a small budget action movie. I resigned myself to remembering her name because, I thought, one day that girl would be a star. To my amazement, I didn't see her in anything other than the second Taxi movie after that. So I thought that maybe I was wrong... until about a week ago when I heard the nominations for the Best Actress category at this year's Oscars... and then last night, when she won. Well done Marion Cotillard, if for nothing else than making me right.

I'll now add her to my list of before they were really famous Oscar predictions with Adrien Brody who I saw in a little film with E.R.'s Maura Tierney before he got his Oscar for "The Pianist." Yes, I know these were neither of these actor's first films, but they were the first I saw them in, and that's all I had to work with.  You know what else, Ellen Page has been on my list since she was on "Regenesis."  Maybe I missed my chance to be right about her last night.  Don't you hate it when your own brilliance gets in the way of you being right about everything instead of just some things.

I was going to live blog the Oscar's last night from my PSP but then I remembered I was actually lying in front of them trying to fall asleep... so I didn't... do either. I'm surprisingly awake today which is odd because I've been feeling sleepy for the last month during the day even though I've been going to bed and waking up early. Maybe I'm just made for the odd 24 hour day.

I was going to write more today, but I didn't.  So this is short.

This is funny to read.

I'm not buying one of these.

These crows are awesome.  (read the story as well as watch the video Rob, I know what you're like when I link to BBC pages.)

This makes me laugh, though it probably shouldn't.

And I envy you folks in Edmonton.  Yesterday, at the CN Canadian Women's Open, favourite golfer Shi Hyun Ahn got a hole in one, and she's tied for the lead at 8 under.

That is all for now.

Jeremy Slater of "How to Write Screenplays.  Badly." fame has a new blog, and it turns out he's funny when he's talking about things that aren't screenplays too.  You should go here to read this entry if nothing else.

I've been seeing a lot of backwards thinking recently.  Well, it's not the thinking so much as what people think that some things are for.  Here are the three major things that people get backwards: police, dictionaries and copyright.  People seem to confuse the way these things do what they do with what they were created to do.  The police aren't there to catch criminals and take them in for punishment.  They're there to help society function by ensuring it runs smoothly.  Part of the way they achieve this is by catching criminals who break society's laws and take them to court so that a punishment can be used in the hopes that it deters them from committing future crimes.  Dictionaries aren't there to give you a restrictive set of words of a language that you can use and any not in it shouldn't be.  Dictionaries are there to help people communicate by noting which words are used in a language and how they are used.  This allows people to find that information so that they can understand the ways those words are used when they need to.  A dictionary does not define which words are part of a language, it instead it is defined by the words that are in a language.  People think that copyright exists to protect artists and make sure they can earn money from their creations, it doesn't.  Copyright exists for the good of the public.  A limited monopoly on how an artist's work can be copied is granted to that artist so they can make money, but that is only so that artists have an incentive to create more works, which the public as consumers, consume.  If copyright is too long the public gain no benefit from the creation which is completely against the reason copyrights were created.  Before copyright, artists had patrons who paid for their works and they didn't do too badly out of that after all.  If the term of copyright is too short then artists have less of an incentive to create new works and the public suffers again.

I bring that kind of thing up in a very brief way because I recently read an article that says scientists have finally decided to agree with how I've always thought about time.  Time is not some ethereal thing ticking away constantly in a forward direction, it's just a useful tool for humanity created by the movement of things.  Time does not really exist.  Here's a nice paragraph from the article talking about it and what clocks are, click on it to go to the article.

“I recently went to the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder,” says Lloyd. (NIST is the government lab that houses the atomic clock that standardizes time for the nation.) “I said something like, ‘Your clocks measure time very accurately.’ They told me, ‘Our clocks do not measure time.’ I thought, Wow, that’s very humble of these guys. But they said, ‘No, time is defined to be what our clocks measure.’ Which is true. They define the time standards for the globe: Time is defined by the number of clicks of their clocks.”

I tried out the MSPY 2003 Chinese IME from Microsft and it was a lot worse than the previous version.  The ability to use the IME pad was gone, as was the choice of the traditional character set.  I got rid of it.  Then I thought to myself that they must have updated it by now so I looked, and there wasn't a nice easy download from Microsoft for something that should really be an essential part of the operating system, after all it's the thing they use in China to input characters when they're using the Windows operating system.  After a while I discovered that the IMEs had been updated for Vista so I looked around some more and discovered there was a new IME that came with Office 2007.  Nice... hide an essential operating system component away in another couple of hundred pounds worth of software.

After that I got thinking about Office 2007 and how I should maybe get it, then I looked at the price and after I'd finished stitching up my splitting sides I found the home and student version.  £100 or thereabouts isn't all that bad, so I thought I might buy it... but then I discovered Outlook didn't come with that version and that would set me back a further £80.  Despite the many versions of Office that exist, there aren't any that give me the components I want at the price I'd be willing to pay.  It's amazing how companies can always find that little loophole that stops me buying their stuff.

Could this be the greatest computer game ever devised?  Maybe... maybe.  Especially if you have a graphics tablet with a pen.  I'd love to see it on the Wii.

Reviews.

Idiocracy - Funny, and worth watching at least once for the frighteningly possible concept.  I don't think I'll ever watch it again though as it's one of those watch once kind of movies.

The Eye - from the people that brought you "Re-Cycle" but before they brought you it.  Not as spooky as I was hoping for, but watchable, even if you can see the problem and the end coming a mile away because you've seen other films or TV shows about people who see dead people.

Paul Merton in China - Was a fun little show about Paul Merton's travels in China.  He's an effortlessly engaging and watchable presenter, and instead of trying to make fun of the strange people he meets, like some presenters would do, he joins in with them, which makes all the goofy and fun things that happen watchable and I never had to do the embarrassed cringe I have to do when people are acting like idiots, making fools of themselves or being rude to the people they're interviewing.  I know some people love that kind of thing where the interviewer is subtly mocking the person they're talking to like they're in on a secret joke with the viewer but I don't like it, it's generally just disingenuous and mean.  Merton isn't like that, he likes the people he's talking to.  He likes that they're odd and add colour to the world.  I hope he does more travelling and more shows.

The fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift - The Fast and the Furious part 3.

Crank - ha ha ha ha ha ha ahhhhhh haha haha ha ha ha ha ha ha .

Die Hard 4.0 - John McClane kicks ass, because he's "That Guy" and no one else is going to fix the problem.  This movie is bigger in scale and scope than the others, but from the first grumble that comes out of his mouth you know it's the same guy and you know you're going to love watching him do his thing.  The only thing wrong with this movie is that stupid, "we better change the title for overseas because... I forget, but maybe we better."  "Oh yeah, totally" thing that must have happened in some boardroom somewhere.  Oh yeah, the supporting cast, effects, stunts, action, in this film, all top notch too.

She's the Man - yes the one with Amanda Bynes.  What?  It was on and I was bored and we came together to have some fun.  There are a lot of jokes you see coming.  There are jokes that really shouldn't exist about boys walking with a swagger or grabbing their junk at every opportunity.  But all in all it was quite fun and I enjoyed it.

The Da Vinci Code - The movie version of the book is just as ludicrous as the book, but also just as entertaining... with added Audrey Tautou.  It seems to me like a fairly good adaptation.  The clues are still far too easy for a code breaker like Sophie and a Professor like Langdon to take that long to solve though.

Pirate Master - Yes, I watch the CBS flop reality show Pirate Master, but it's only because I want that boat... and maybe Nessa.  Having done poorly in the ratings CBS decided they would not waste the air-time on it any more so the last group of episodes are being "aired" online, on a weekly schedule.  But here's something interesting the corporate geniuses at CBS didn't think about, they have a banner at the top of the page where the episodes play showing you the contestants.  Those who are still active are in colour, and those that have been cut adrift are greyed out.  So when you go to see the latest show, if you have even the merest hint of working peripheral vision, you know who gets voted off the show you're now watching.  Congratulation CBS, you've just ruined for its remaining fans the show you've already ruined.  Still, it's not that great a show anyway, it's far too short to show everything they should be showing to get you interested in what's going on.  These shows always stick to the formula that's killing them.  Previously -> couple of faces talking -> today's challenge -> heavily edited challenge where you have no intellectual part to play at home so you can't tell if you're smarter than the contestants -> winners and losers -> a little bit of scheming, but not enough to get a sense of the people -> vote them off including cowardice and backstabbing to get rid of the competent and interesting people -> tear-filled goodbye + walk, drift, cab, into the sunset.  Seriously though, I want that boat!  I want a huge wooden galleon I can sail the oceans on.  That's one lovely boat and the people who get to sail it for the show are lucky, lucky people, even the ones that got voted off early.  I want that boat!... and maybe Nessa.

Studio 60 - is over.  I enjoyed it immensely.  I wish it hadn't been cancelled, but I guess from the moment I started liking it, its fate was sealed.

Maybe, never really went away, with nothing to say.

Here's some shadows made with rubbish.

Moving on, I have the new Harry Potter book, and am of course avoiding the spoiler haven that is the internet.  Normally I wouldn't buy the book, since I don't have the others, and then borrow Kenny's once he's done, but this time my mum came in with one for me, so there wasn't much point of not reading it then.  Despite the R.R.P., inside being £17.99 she got it for £8.99.  Amazing.  I wonder if anyone will ever pay full price for that book.

No, I haven't finished it yet.  I read quite slowly.  It's something I've been thinking about for a while.  I've looked up some stuff on the internet about reading faster recently in the hopes I can speed up.  I like to imagine all the time I could save and how much more I could get done if I could only double my reading speed or more.  In my travels I came across some very unlikely sounding statistics:

"The average person reads at about 200 wpm [words per minute] with about 60% comprehension.  With our techniques you can raise that to over 1,000 wpm with 85% comprehension."  People don't comprehend all of what they read?  That's either shocking, or bullshit.  Personally I read at around 250 wpm, which is the average according to other sites, but I get, unsurprisingly 100% comprehension.  Why would I spend my time reading if I didn't?  I just can't imagine looking at a text and keeping going even though I'm only taking in just over half of what's on the page.  What's the point of that?  I think the numbers must be wrong, for effect.  I know I'd keep going over a text again and again until I comprehended everything I was reading.  Sure, that might drop my reading rate to 30 wpm, but at least I'd be taking in the information.  If you're not comprehending everything aren't you just giving your eyes a several hour long workout, passing them back and forth over what could essentially be identical pieces of paper?  If that was your thing that'd be quite a space saver.  Instead of taking a novel with you on the bus you could just take a couple of sheets of paper and then repeatedly skim them.  You'd get the same enjoyment of the eye movements wouldn't you?

Speaking of taking the novel with you on the bus, save your manly pride whilst reading Harry Potter with these extra manly replacement covers.

So what have I been reading,  "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins, which is a wonderful little book.  The way we're taught evolution in school is nothing like as well put as this book.  Perhaps they should be using it in class.  I'm moving on to "The Blind Watchmaker" next.  So what's "The Selfish Gene about?"  Basically it's an argument for the idea of the basic unit of natural selection being the gene.  It's a very simply and clearly written book, which is exactly what you need if you only normally understand 60% of what you read.  There's no point in me saying much more though because it's a really old book.  I think he revisits and expands on the ideas in it in "The Extended Phenotype" anyway.  Maybe I'll say more once I've read that.

What happens when your shoes turn to jelly? Anchors laugh.  Me too.  I laugh every time I watch this.

Do you know what else makes me laugh?  Community Channel on Youtube.  I'd give you a list of favourite videos, but we'd be here a while.  You should watch lots.  Oh, remember to watch "Just to say hello and stuff about my project.. blah" before "... i was the dancing girl (follow up on my project)" just because otherwise you'll not quite get it.  At the time this blog went to press the video on her main page was "random hello/harry potter/outtakes" which features a bit about the music on TV quiz shows which reminds me of this classic youtube video featuring someone on the French "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."  If there's a lesson to be learned from that it's never to ask the audience on the French "Millionaire."  You have been warned.  There's a lot of links to click there and if you're smart you'll spend the day watching Community Channel's videos so I'll leave you for now.  Reviews tomorrow.

I got up extremely late today.  For the last few days I've been getting up at 4.30 a.m., which is really fantastic.  It wouldn't be so fantastic if I was doing that in winter and there were still another five hours of darkness to contend with, but in the summer, it's fab.  It's amazing how much I can get done at 4.30 in the morning.  Today I got up at 8.00 a.m., meaning I missed those most productive hours.  I hope this isn't me emerging out of that old pattern and into a new one already.  I really like the 4.30 up pattern.  I hope even more that I'm not going to end up in a pattern where I'm going to have to fight to stay awake or get up for my new job which starts on Monday.  It's only temp work, but it's something on my CV and a possible reference, which should be a big help in looking for something more permanent.

But how?  Some of you must be asking.  How could you of all people get up at 4.30?  I've told some of you before.  It's not that I'm attuned to staying up at night.  I'm just not good at regulating when I sleep at all.  It's a lottery to me.  I'm just as likely to be awake during the day as at night.  Getting up at 4.30 meant falling asleep around 8.00 p.m., (20.00).  Falling asleep at 8.00 p.m., (20.00) meant getting up at 4.30, until today.  So last night I got 12 hours.  That means I'm tired and unalert this morning.  It's funny how too much sleep can often be as bad as too little.

Anyway, I highly recommend 4.30 as a wake up time.  Try it.  Now, on with the day.